Fenugreek question

MrsAJL

If you have taken fenugreek to increase your breast milk supply, how long did you take the supplement?  For the duration of breast feeding your child?

I started taking it three days ago (as well as increasing my water intake) and noticed a boost in my supply.  DD is about 50/50 nursing sessions with formula feeds.  We're good with this situation. 

My goal was to get her back to 100% breast milk with bottles of expressed breastmilk, but I think I'm pumping wrong. I can hardly get anything.  I have a Medela Symphony from Special Addition. All my pump parts are new. Suction is good. I just think I'm pumping challenged.

Any thoughts?

 

rssnlvr

Are you doing breast compressions while pumping? I always got way more when I did manual compressions than when I didn't. I've also heard that looking at pictures of the baby can help with let downs.

MrsAJL

rssnlvr:

Are you doing breast compressions while pumping? I always got way more when I did manual compressions than when I didn't. I've also heard that looking at pictures of the baby can help with let downs.

This may sound like a dumb Q, but do you just pump one breast at a time if you do compressions or do you use a hands-free bra?

Taytee

Fenugreek on it's own did absolutely nothing for me. I like to tell people it's like taking Tylenol for a severe headache. May work for some people, not for me. I had to do the full on More Milk Plus and Mother's Milk tea too.

I definitely always had to pump using lots of compression and massaging. If you're really wanting to up your supply, hand express at the end if you have to. There are lots of websites that give instructions how to do this. It's been shown to be highly effective at telling your body "Hey, we need to keep making MORE!"

When I had to re-establish my supply for Emily after all my thyroid misinformation, I also felt like getting a high quality iron supplement helped. Especially since I'm usually a little anemic anyway. I used Floradix IRON gluten free.

What is your pumping schedule and how are you scheduling your pumps? AM/PM? after every feeding?

Taytee

MrsAJL:

rssnlvr:

Are you doing breast compressions while pumping? I always got way more when I did manual compressions than when I didn't. I've also heard that looking at pictures of the baby can help with let downs.

This may sound like a dumb Q, but do you just pump one breast at a time if you do compressions or do you use a hands-free bra?

I would pump leaning a little foward so both breasts would be pumping at the same time. I didn't need a bra (usually the bottom of the flange sort of rested in my nursing tank though), the bottles just positioned on my thighs.Then I'd alternately focus on massaging one breast at a time. There's also a "jiggle" manuveer you can do after pumping and then pump a little bit more. Ignore the time they state on that link though. I never could empty in less than 15 minutes of actual pumping unless I was just pumping to very very empty after a feed.

MrsMillerTime

MrsAJL:

rssnlvr:

Are you doing breast compressions while pumping? I always got way more when I did manual compressions than when I didn't. I've also heard that looking at pictures of the baby can help with let downs.

This may sound like a dumb Q, but do you just pump one breast at a time if you do compressions or do you use a hands-free bra?

I just pumped one side at a time.  I could never get the hang of dual-manual compressions and always ended up spilling milk everywhere.

MrsAJL

Taytee, to answer your question, I don't have a pumping schedule.

When I do pump, it is mostly in the evening after Molly goes to sleep. She doesn't wake up through the night to eat.  She will usually drink 4oz of formula and then nurse to sleep before she goes down for the night.

Anyway, during the week, I'll nurse her if we're at home, but if we're out, I'll give her a bottle (I'm not sure how to do the whole NIP very well so that's why I have been giving her formula.)

I'd like to replace the formula with breast milk, but how do I set up a pumping schedule?  Do I pump by time of day? After every time I nurse her?  I'm kind of at a loss. 

Taytee

If you can dedicate a few solid days to being at home, pumping after every feeding or pumping at least every 3 hours will usually increase your supply even without supplements. It really is supply and demand. That way you'll train your boobs that they have to make x amount every couple of hours and hopefully that will eventually mean she nurses until she's satisfied and you don't have to be tied to the pump or feel like you need to supplement.

Although NIP isn't easy, directly breastfeeding her at every opportunity is the best thing. The more she is in skin to skin contact with you, the more easily those hormones and milk flow. And most babies are much better than a pump I tried to hand express once after Emily had been on the boob for a long time and I couldn't get barely even a drop out! If you really want to get back to 100% breastmilk, you can't miss feeding her directly if it's possible or at minimum, pumpings. Every time you feel yourself get very full to the point of leaking or your milk lets down while you're out (and you stop it with pressure or whatever), your body is getting the message "we don't need to be making this much milk!". When i was really trying to get my supply up I once even let my boobs just let down into the pads and replaced them 3-4 times until I stopped leaking because I didn't want to apply the pressure to make it stop and I knew I couldn't pump for another 2 hours.

If you just want to have extra milk to use on those outtings, then you can focus on maybe pumping more vigorously for that last pumping or pump after she nurses down to sleep and once more before you go to sleep. That kind of schedule will tell your body to make more milk at that time and you can build a stash. It probably won't get you completely away from formula but will increase your breastmilk availability overall  Pumping all freaking day sucks.  I know for me, pumping all the time with Abby around was a very interesting experience. But I let her turn off the pump if she behaved while I pumped so she looked forward to that!

jgb2000

Taytee:

MrsAJL:

rssnlvr:

Are you doing breast compressions while pumping? I always got way more when I did manual compressions than when I didn't. I've also heard that looking at pictures of the baby can help with let downs.

This may sound like a dumb Q, but do you just pump one breast at a time if you do compressions or do you use a hands-free bra?

I would pump leaning a little foward so both breasts would be pumping at the same time. I didn't need a bra (usually the bottom of the flange sort of rested in my nursing tank though), the bottles just positioned on my thighs.Then I'd alternately focus on massaging one breast at a time. There's also a "jiggle" manuveer you can do after pumping and then pump a little bit more. Ignore the time they state on that link though. I never could empty in less than 15 minutes of actual pumping unless I was just pumping to very very empty after a feed.

I do this same thing.  But I cross one arm in front of both flanges and hold both in place (one with hand, the other with the forearm) and free up my other hand to massage or turn pages in my book, etc. I also used Fenugreek and just used it for a couple weeks until supply went back up. I also ate a lot of oatmeal! Good luck.

MrsAJL

Taytee:

If you can dedicate a few solid days to being at home, pumping after every feeding or pumping at least every 3 hours will usually increase your supply even without supplements. It really is supply and demand. That way you'll train your boobs that they have to make x amount every couple of hours and hopefully that will eventually mean she nurses until she's satisfied and you don't have to be tied to the pump or feel like you need to supplement.

Although NIP isn't easy, directly breastfeeding her at every opportunity is the best thing. The more she is in skin to skin contact with you, the more easily those hormones and milk flow. And most babies are much better than a pump I tried to hand express once after Emily had been on the boob for a long time and I couldn't get barely even a drop out! If you really want to get back to 100% breastmilk, you can't miss feeding her directly if it's possible or at minimum, pumpings. Every time you feel yourself get very full to the point of leaking or your milk lets down while you're out (and you stop it with pressure or whatever), your body is getting the message "we don't need to be making this much milk!". When i was really trying to get my supply up I once even let my boobs just let down into the pads and replaced them 3-4 times until I stopped leaking because I didn't want to apply the pressure to make it stop and I knew I couldn't pump for another 2 hours.

If you just want to have extra milk to use on those outtings, then you can focus on maybe pumping more vigorously for that last pumping or pump after she nurses down to sleep and once more before you go to sleep. That kind of schedule will tell your body to make more milk at that time and you can build a stash. It probably won't get you completely away from formula but will increase your breastmilk availability overall  Pumping all freaking day sucks.  I know for me, pumping all the time with Abby around was a very interesting experience. But I let her turn off the pump if she behaved while I pumped so she looked forward to that!

Thank you! I appreciate all this advice.

amyk927

I've used fenugreek, but not very reliably...I'd take it for a day or two or three if I noticed my supply had dipped a little and it would come back up.  I think it might have been placebo or perhaps me not worrying as much about it, but it worked every time.  Supposedly you can titrate down the fenugreek once your supply is up where you want it.

I power-pumped to try to increase my supply also, which seemed to also help.  20 min on, 10 off, and repeat.  Apparently pumping for a while after there's no more milk coming out will help increase supply and you can do this every time after the baby nurses.

Turning up the pressure on the symphony helped me quite a bit...it was a little painful at first, but much better and I got a lot more output.  Perhaps the size of your flange isn't right...I think that the medela site has info on how to pick the correct size.  I bought a size up and size down from mine from BRU and tried them both to see which worked the best.